Deadly Matrimony

Deadly Matrimony based on Alan and Dianne Masters Case

2011-10-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

Director John Korty's TV movies are always exceptional, and Brian Dennehy is one of the most commanding actors working in the medium. Now Korty and Dennehy have teamed up for "Deadly Matrimony," a two-part NBC miniseries starting tomorrow night at 9 on Channel 4, and the result is dynamite with a slow-burning fuse.Superficially the story of a murder and the building of a case against the murderer, the film -- which concludes Monday night -- also works as a gripping tale of good against evil in which evil seems to hold all the cards. Korty pulls the knot very very tight, generating industrial-strength suspense without resorting to cheap scare tactics. The script by Andrew Laskos is said to be based on a true story and certainly doesn't lack for credibility. Dennehy plays Det. Jack Reed, an honest cop who doesn't have a lot of company, at least not on the South Side of Chicago where the story is set. His dogged attempt to solve the murder of a mob lawyer's beautiful wife pulls him into a tangled web of corruption that involves fellow cops, judges, even the chief of police.In its portrayal of one good lawman facing almost insurmountable odds, the film recalls Phil Karlson's "Walking Tall," but it's more subtle and sophisticated, touches more bases and doesn't rely on lots of violence to keep you riveted. It does rely on Dennehy's ability to make a viewer sit up and take notice; he has no trouble doing that.There's a tiny defining moment early on, when Dennehy as Reed pays a visit to the local mob boss and, asked to leave, is briefly grabbed by one of the flunkies. "No, no, don't ever touch, huh?" says Reed, pulling away. "That's a bad idea. Trust me." Dennehy underplays scenes like this exquisitely.Part 1 opens with the discovery of the victim, and the rest of the first night is made up of a flashback showing how she met and married the lawyer, thinking him her salvation, finding out he's the opposite. Embeth Davidtz plays the woman, Dianne Masters, and knowing how she'll end up, cold and blue in the trunk of a sunken car, immensely enhances the poignancy of the journey she'll make, from dewy-eyed compliance to defiant independence.That she founds and runs a shelter for abused women is no coincidence. Alan Masters (Treat Williams) turns out to be her worst nightmare times ten. He's the kind of scum that lives beneath slime. Everyone expects Dennehy to be intimidating on the screen, but Williams also turns in a performance of surprisingly high impact. Davidtz is remarkable at charting the growth of her character, each upward step taking her closer to her doom.Susan Ruttan does a good job in the relatively small role of the detective's wife, and Lisa Eilbacher is extraordinarily affecting as Nina, a friend of Dianne's married to a crooked cop who is also a spouse abuser. The scenes of domestic violence are properly terrifying but not overdone. Korty is a director who can impart much more than he shows.The pervasiveness of the corruption that surrounds Reed and hampers his search for the truth grows more and more ominous. Unfortunately, the road leads eventually to courtroom hokum that not even Korty can do much to distinguish, but you do get an ending that is satisfying and conclusive.Obviously even Reed -- known around the precinct as "the Jesuit" for his ideals -- will be tempted along the way. A superior who's on the take and who bristles at Reed's determination tells him, "You know, Jack, I could get you more money in the next hour than you could make in 20 years."The film confirms one's worst suspicions about corruption in high places and reaffirms one's most fondly held hopes that there'll always be one brave soul around to rock the boat, turning it over if need be. It's good to be told that now and again.'Nightmare' Another Sunday night, another garbagey CBS movie. This week it's "Nightmare in the Daylight," an irritating and far-fetched thriller airing at 9 tomorrow on Channel 9. CBS executives seem determined to blow the Sunday night franchise they've held for over a decade by programming one dreadful movie after another.Jaclyn Smith plays a teacher visiting San Francisco with her husband, a high school principal attending a convention. Out from amongst the potted plants creeps Christopher Reeve as a sleazy Los Angeles lawyer who upon seeing her begins to insist that she is the wife he lost seven years ago during an earthquake in Mexico. The body was never recovered.Thus begins a series of bizarre harassments that usually end with Reeve being chased away by the wife or the husband or a combination of the two. Of course we know that eventually there'll be a showdown a' la "Cape Fear" in which the woman will have to confront her accuser one-on-one. My, but it's a long time coming.First we have to take a walking tour of San Francisco. Then Reeve breaks into her hotel room. Then he has her abducted and brought to a friend's house. And yet whenever the beleaguered couple appeal to authorities, they're told by the cops that, gee, there's really nothing they can do until the guy actually inflicts bodily harm. Baloney.Smith is beautiful as always, but she seems like she should be hosting a network morning show rather than acting in silly movies like this. Reeve is embarrassing; another Superman bites the dust. The surprise denouement will be no surprise to anyone who's been paying close attention, but anyone who pays close attention to tripe of this ilk is probably in big trouble.

2011-09-17T10:22:00.001-07:00

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Corrupt Cops, Dirty Cops in Chicago Murder Case

2008-09-07T16:06:00.001-07:00

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee,v.ALAN MASTERS, MICHAEL J. CORBITT, and JAMES D. KEATING, Defendants-Appellants
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
Nos. 89-2851, 89-2872, 89-2873
December 14, 1990, Argued—February 6, 1991, Decided
Lead opinion by POSNER
1365 POSNER, Circuit Judge
Alan Masters and James Keating were charged in 1988 with, among other things, having "conducted an . . . enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity" in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), and (along with Michael Corbitt) of having conspired to do so, in violation of § 1962(d); both are, of course, provisions of the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute. The statute provides that "enterprise" "includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity." § 1961(4). The statutory term "pattern of racketeering activity" "requires at least two acts of racketeering activity," § 1961(5), defined as violations of various federal and state statutes. The jury found Masters and Keating guilty on both counts and Corbitt guilty on the conspiracy count -- the only one he had been charged with, because the statute of limitations had expired on his substantive violations. The judge gave Masters and Keating consecutive prison sentences of 20 and 20, and 20 and 15, years, respectively, and Corbitt 20 years. The judge also fined Masters $ 250,000 on the conspiracy count and ordered all three defendants to forfeit criminal proceeds of $ 42,000. These are all pre-Sentencing Guidelines sentences. There were other counts in the indictment besides the two RICO counts, but the jury acquitted the defendants on those counts.
There is no challenge to the jury instructions, so we must construe the facts as favorably to the prosecution as the trial record and the jury verdict permit. The facts are a lurid mixture of corruption and murder in a west suburban Chicago setting. Masters was a lawyer, Keating a lieutenant in the Cook County Sheriff's Police Department who commanded the vice squad and later the criminal investigative unit, and Corbitt the chief of police of Willow Springs. The RICO enterprise, as the government conceives it, was an informal association among the three defendants and three other entities (so a total of six in all): Masters' law firm (a professional corporation of which he was the sole shareholder and which employed another lawyer) and the two police departments. Between 1970 and June 1982, when Corbitt lost his job as chief of police of Willow Springs, Masters bribed Corbitt to refer persons arrested, ticketed, or investigated by the Willow Springs Police Department to Masters for legal assistance. Masters had similar kickback schemes with other police officers in the area. Keating entered the picture in 1972, two years after Corbitt. Between then and August 1984 Masters was the middleman in a scheme in which illegal bookmakers in Cicero, Illinois bribed Keating and officers under Keating's command to leave them alone.
In 1981 Masters discovered that his wife, Dianne, was having an affair. He asked a friend in the Cook County Sheriff's Police Department who would be in charge of any investigation arising out of events at Masters' home, and was disappointed when told that it would not be Keating. In January 1982 Dianne Masters hired a lawyer to file for a divorce. She let it be known that she hoped to obtain custody of her and Masters' four-year-old daughter. Masters hired a former police officer, Ted Nykaza, to install recording equipment in the Masters household for the purpose of eavesdropping on telephone conversations between Dianne and her paramour. Listening, with Nykaza and a Cook County Sheriff's Police sergeant, to one of the recorded conversations, Masters thought he heard Dianne and her paramour reminisce about the paramour's inserting a wine bottle into Dianne's vagina as part of their sex play. Masters exploded with anger and declared that he would have Dianne killed. Later he told a friend that he would ask Keating to kill her. Keating offered a former Cook 1366 County Sheriff 's Police officer $ 25,000 to kill Dianne on Masters' behalf, explaining that Corbitt was unwilling to do the killing himself but had agreed to dispose of the body.
Dianne Masters disappeared in the early morning of March 19, 1982. Her body was recovered from the trunk of her car nine months later when the car was discovered submerged in a canal near Willow Springs. She had been beaten and shot. Probably Corbitt had driven the car into the canal, though the jury's findings on this point are ambiguous. In the following months Keating used his position in the Cook County Sheriff's Police Department to obstruct the investigation of Dianne Masters' disappearance. Masters collected the proceeds of a $ 100,000 policy on Dianne's life. No one was ever charged with the murder.
The jury found that Masters had planned and solicited the murder of Dianne, that Keating had aided and abetted Masters' planning and solicitation, that Keating had obstructed the investigation, that (subject to our earlier qualification) Corbitt had sunk the car in the canal, and that all three defendants had agreed to conceal their actions relating to Dianne's murder indefinitely.

Death of Dianne Masters

2008-09-07T15:41:00.002-07:00

The trial continues this week for Alan Masters, a lawyer; former Willow Springs Police Chief Michael Corbitt; and James Keating, a former lieutenant with the Cook County Sheriff's Police. All three are charged with bribery, racketeering and mail fraud in connection with the death in 1982 of Masters' wife, Dianne. Prosecutors contend that Dianne Masters, 35, a trustee of Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Ill., was killed after her husband learned she had been involved in a four-month love affair with James Koscielniak, an instructor at the college. Dianne Masters disappeared in March 1982, and her body was discovered months later when her car was fished out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. Copies of a 1981 Chicago Sun-Times column by the Rev. Andrew Greeley, titled ''Love and Sex: Truths the Bible Teaches Us'' were distributed to the U.S. District Court jurors after Koscielniak said he had mailed a copy of it to Dianne Masters in their affair. In the column, Greeley discussed the sexual imagery in the Song of Solomon and said it was depicted ''with words that are surely more tantalizing than any Penthouse magazine can manage.'' Koscielniak testified Thursday that he and Dianne Masters once acted out some of the imagery in the column in a sexual encounter and later discussed it on the telephone. Prosecutors say Alan Masters had the telephone call intercepted and listened to a tape recording of it, which drove him into a rage against his wife. Diane Economou, a partner in Alan Masters' law firm in suburban Summit, testified that she had been present when a private detective informed Alan Masters that Koscielniak was his wife's lover. In testimony Friday before Judge James Zagel, former sheriff's deputy Jack Bachman said Keating had offered him a share of $25,000 to aid in the plot to kill Dianne Masters about a month before she disappeared

Photos of Dianne Masters aka Diane Masters

2008-09-07T15:41:00.001-07:00

There are certain people who start by breaking the law just a little bit," observed Treat Williams. "For some, it remains just a little bit. But for him, it was like opening a floodgate." Thus did Alan Masters, a powerful, mob-connected lawyer who was known as the fixer of south-suburban Chicago, graduate from doing favors for friends to the murder of his own wife. Masters had so many police pals, in fact, that for eight years he was able to divert attention from himself. Not until an honest cop became the force behind the investigation of Dianne Masters' murder did the truth emerge, and with it information about rampant, long-time corruption in Chicago-area law agencies. Treat Williams plays Masters in NBC's two-part movie, "Deadly Matrimony," Sunday and Monday at 9 each night. South African-born Embeth Davidtz is Dianne Masters, who grew up in a Polish neighborhood and became entranced by him. Brian Dennehy plays Sgt. Jack Reed, an honest cop and a family man, and Susan Ruttan is his wife, Arlene. Reed, assigned to head the investigation in 1986, spent more than two years gathering evidence and interviewing key witnesses along with investigators Robert Colby and Paul Sabin. He did his job so well that after a month-long trial, the Masters jury took only 3 1/2 hours to convict Masters on charges of conspiracy, bribery and racketeering. Although tales of real-life corruption in Chicago-area law enforcement agencies would make a series of movies in themselves, "Deadly Matrimony" focuses on Masters, the men who helped him cover up his wife's murder, and Reed. Williams said the movie should be viewed as "inspired by a true story. I would not say that all these events actually occurred. I think an audience is intelligent enough to realize that this is a fictionalized account." In the movie, Dianne Masters grows tired of the vacuous life of "wife-of" and wary of her husband's violent streak. She decides to carve out her own interests, founding a center for abused women. She also meets a professor at a local college, played by Terry Kinney, with whom she begins an affair. Eventually, she begins to consider divorcing Alan Masters. As Masters loses control over Dianne, his violence against her increases. She fears him but hesitates to leave because he threatens to prevent her from ever seeing their young daughter. "Her growth as a person enraged him," said Williams. "It was a real character flaw." Then, in 1982, Dianne Masters, 35, disappeared. It wasn't until nine months later that her body was found in the trunk of her Cadillac, submerged in a Chicago canal and recovered during the federal investigation of an unrelated insurance scam. Her skull had been bashed, and she had been shot twice through the brain. Eight years later, Masters, then 56, was convicted of bribing police and planning Dianne Masters' murder. After his lawyer appealed his original sentencing on technical grounds, he was resentenced in August 1991 to an even harsher term: 40 years in prison, to serve at least 24 years and no more than 30 years. James Keating, once a lieutenant in the Cook County Sheriff's office, and Michael Corbitt, ex-police chief of suburban Willow Spring, were convicted of racketeering in connection with the murder. No one has been convicted of the actual murder. Prosecutors believe Masters bludgeoned his wife and Corbitt shot her in the head and dumped the body into the canal, and that is the film's scenario. What may not be so clear is the time that passed after Dianne Masters' body was found. Keating, managing a well-organized cover-up, kept his officers busy with a sham investigation for years. He is not represented by name in the film. It wasn't until crucial information was provided by several frightened wives, girlfriends and coworkers of men who worked in several Chicago-area police departments that the case was reopened in 1986. Speaking anonymously, the women described a pattern of intimidation that included threats made to them as well as jokes about Dianne Masters' fate. In the film, the women are represented by lounge chanteuse Nina Sloane (Lisa Eilbacher), Corbitt's girlfriend and Dianne Masters' loyal friend. She is the only one of several women portrayed who is brave enough to testify. In reality, none of the women testified in court. Their fear is understandable enough. While Corbitt was police chief in Willow Springs, prosecutors said, he had set fire to a nightclub there in an insurance scam. He also had inherited a speedboat and money from a reputed mobster murdered in Florida. Corbitt served time in federal prison for extortion and racketeering before the Masters case came to trial. Keating was convicted in 1986 for taking protection money and bribes after a federal crackdown on suburban prostitution and gambling. Federal investigators considered Keating organized crime's link to the Cook County sheriff's department. Dianne Masters' killing was not the only murder case in which he became involved. Six of the men who investigated Dianne Masters' disappearance in 1982 were later convicted or implicated in prostitution or car theft rings. Court documents revealed that Masters himself co-owned a brothel with two former Cook County Sheriff's Police officers who were investigators in his wife's case. In 1989, the Chicago Tribune began a series of articles reporting that Cook County cops with ties to organized crime and drug dealers had engaged in a variety of illegal actions. They included sabotaging investigations of execution-style murders, covering up evidence of crimes by law enforcement officials and judges, concealing evidence, thwarting efforts to interview witnesses, and hiding their own relationships with suspects and victims in murder investigations. The Tribune called the sheriff's office "backwaters of corruption where high-ranking officers have routinely placed protection of friends above pursuit of murderers, drug dealers and corrupt public officials." Dianne Turner did not know any of that when she met lawyer Alan Masters, who handled her divorce in 1972. What probably attracted her to Masters was his power, said Williams. "I think power is extremely attractive," he said. "He had an enormous group of friends, so one wonders whether, before he was considered scum, he had some degree of manipulative powers. I had heard from Reed that when Alan Masters walked into a room, he was the only person for whom judges would stand." At least one of them, according to the film, was involved in the cover-up. Unlike the fit Williams, Alan Masters was a hefty man who, Williams said, "apparently was physically very lethargic. For instance, he would go on vacation, and when others were out engaged in activities, he would sit and sweat -- that was his sport, to sweat. He was apparently quite obese." Williams said he did not try to portray Masters "as a likeness -- this is a sense of the character." In the film, Dianne accepts an invitation to a party in Masters' honor and meets several of his close friends, including reputed underworld crime boss Vic Scalisi (George Morfogen), Corbitt (John M. Jackson), and Nina Sloane. Impressed with the high life, and not realizing that he is still married, a naive Dianne falls for him. When she later tells him she is pregnant, he divorces his first wife and marries her, to the amazement of their friends. According to The Tribune, the pair did not marry until 1980, after their daughter, Anndra, was born. The girl -- called Kim in the film -- now lives with her stepmother, the family's former housekeeper, whom Masters married in 1988 shortly after his indictment. As to whether Alan Masters will watch the film from prison, Williams said: "I'm sure that he'll have a response. Most people who have that sort of ego would." Williams and Davidtz paired up last year for another NBC movie, "Till Death Us Do Part." They played a couple whose relationship, he said, was "not terribly different from this one, an abusive relationship." In January, Williams will star with Kelly McGillis in a CBS movie he also executive-produced, "Bonds of Love." It's the story of a mentally retarded man in Kansas who married despite his family's objections to the woman he chose. Also upcoming is his mid-season series for CBS, "Good Advice," with Shelley Long. He's a lawyer and she's a marriage counselor. "It's a combative relationship," he said, "warmly combative, two people who seem to gravitate toward one another but can't seem to get along."

2008-09-07T15:40:00.001-07:00

Alan Masters, convicted of plotting his wife's murder in a sordid case that spawned two books and a TV miniseries, was buried Wednesday in Chicago after dying in a prison hospital. Mr. Masters, 65, died Monday in the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., six months after being transferred from the Pekin Federal Correctional Institute. He drew a 40-year sentence in 1989 after a federal judge ruled he had conspired to kill his wife, Dianne. Also convicted were former Willow Springs Police Chief Michael Corbitt and former Cook County Sheriff's Police Cmdr. James Keating. Dianne Masters' body was found in 1982 in the trunk of her yellow Cadillac after it was hoisted out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Willow Springs. Missing for nine months, she had been shot twice and her skull was crushed. Prosecutors said Mr. Masters confessed he had beaten her to death with a pistol in the driveway of their home in Summit. But his statement was not allowed to be used at trial, and no one ever was charged with the murder. The government called Mr. Masters a "master fixer" who paid off judges and police officers such as Corbitt and Keating to protect gambling and prostitution in the southwest suburbs. A wealthy Palos Park attorney, Mr. Masters began courting Dianne while advising her on a divorce from her first husband. The Masters' marriage was marked by beatings and riven by her affairs, the last one with an English teacher. She talked explicitly about the affair on a telephone she suspected was being tapped by her husband. In the months before Mrs. Masters' disappearance, Mr. Masters openly made threats against her to friends and close clients. The sensational story was told in "Deadly Matrimony," a TV movie in which the overweight, toupee-wearing Mr. Masters was played by Treat Williams. It also was the basis for two books: Blind Justice, written by Ray and Edie Gibson with Mrs. Masters' brother, Randall Turner, and Shattered Hopes: A True Crime Story of Marriage, Murder, Corruption and Cover-up in the Suburbs, by Barbara Schaaf. Mr. Masters is survived by his wife, Janet, whom he married after Dianne Masters' death; two sons, Steven and Douglas; a daughter he had with Dianne Masters, Anndra; a brother, Leonard, and four grandchildren.
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Corbitt is Free

2008-09-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

For decades, Michael Corbitt led a dual life, never being what he appeared to be.
From 1963 to the mid-1980s, while wearing the badge of a police officer, he befriended organized crime figures and presided over a riot of corruption that would "take your breath away," according to one federal prosecutor.
Corbitt, the former police chief of Willow Springs, was sentenced to a 20-year term on three different federal charges, including his part in the murder of Dianne Masters, a wealthy south suburban college trustee.
After he went to prison in 1987, Corbitt continued a secret life, this time working on the side of law and order. For at least five years, Corbitt has been cooperating with federal prosecutors from behind bars.
On Tuesday, Corbitt was rewarded for that role: He was quietly freed from prison about two years early. Under federal law, Corbitt would have been eligible for release in about the year 2000.
While his release by U.S. District Judge James Zagel in Chicago came at the urging of federal prosecutors and current and former FBI agents all over the country, others called his release a travesty.
"How can somebody just get out of jail? I think the justice system is handing out too many get-out-of-jail cards," said Randy Turner, the brother of Dianne Masters.
Former Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Scorza, who prosecuted Corbitt, said it was "astounding to me" that Corbitt was released. Scorza said it was rare that the authorities would release an inmate with a criminal history like Corbitt's, who had only about two years to serve on his sentence.
"Ordinarily a guy in his position could not be released unless he essentially coughed it all up," he said.
Corbitt was first sentenced to prison in 1987 for extorting bribes from an undercover federal agent, but he was subsequently convicted in the federal racketeering and conspiracy case involving the Masters murder.
While no one has been charged with her murder, federal prosecutors convicted her husband, corrupt lawyer Alan Masters, on conspiracy charges along with another Cook County sheriff's lieutenant. Corbitt was convicted of accepting $8,000 from Masters to dispose of her Cadillac where the body had been stuffed in the trunk after she was shot twice in the head.
Scorza believes Corbitt has manipulated the system. "I find it unconscionable that the government would reduce his sentence if" Corbitt didn't reveal details of the slaying of Masters, he said.
Federal agents, though, have downplayed his role in the murder of Dianne Masters and they have vouched for his credibility in letters to Zagel.
Those supporting Corbitt's early release have been impressed with the extent of his help in a variety of investigations.
Corbitt aided with the federal crackdown of a mob-influenced union, helped solve at least one homicide, prevented the murder of a prominent Florida public figure and provided information that prompted a federal probe of an international money-laundering operation involving mob-run casinos in Central America, authorities say.
Corbitt's role as a government informant surfaced in 1992 when it was revealed he was providing testimony in the scandal surrounding the federal prosecution of the El Rukn street gang.
And last year his testimony became public in the federal effort to wrest control of the union that represents 19,000 laborers. A federal judge in Chicago last month placed the Laborers International Union of North America under the control of trustees after finding that the union's leadership was closely linked to organized crime.
It was Corbitt, testifying from his Florida prison last August, who helped investigators make their case.
Corbitt testified that union leaders met with organized crime figures and others in restaurants and nightclubs, far away from union job sites.
"Corbitt's testimony detailed his associations with and activities of several individuals affiliated with the Chicago Outfit," wrote independent hearing officer Peter Vaira, who ruled that Corbitt's testimony was credible in a report on the union.
Corbitt testified he saw Bruno Caruso, who once headed the districtcouncil that represents 21 local unions, and his brother, Frank, dining at Counsellors Row with the late Pat Marcy, a 1st Ward power broker and crime figure. Corbitt testified that Caruso passed Marcy an envelope that investigators say contained payments to the mob.
In his testimony, Corbitt described Marcy as "the major fixer" and said he delivered garbage bags full of cash, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, to Marcy at the restaurant. The cash, Corbitt said, was street taxes collected by organized crime figures from illegal gambling clubs and other criminal enterprises.
"Pat Marcy . . . was getting a package (of money) every month, and I would be the guy who brought him this," Corbitt testified.
He also testified that on the day he was heading to prison, he delivered $35,000 in cash to Marcy from a Chicago man who ran the Chicago mob's gambling operation in Central America.
Federal agents in Salt Lake City are investigating how the mob funneled cash from its Central American gambling operations to Chicago.
"Mr. Corbitt has been cooperative with the Salt Lake City division," a Salt Lake City FBI agent wrote in 1996 on Corbitt's behalf to get a sentence reduction.
"Corbitt is currently providing the government with information relating to: murders committed in Illinois; the activities of criminal organizations in the United States and Central America . . .," according to filings in Corbitt's case several years ago.
The former police chief's entree to the mob came at an early age. At 18, he opened a gas station that was frequented by mob chieftains. Corbitt helped them store hijacked goods and trucks at the garage.
When the business shut down, the late mob boss Sam Giancana, sent him to the former mayor of Willow Springs for a job.
"I went out and had a meeting with him and was sworn in at his tavern that day as a police officer,"
Corbitt testified during the labor union hearings, adding that from his very first day on the job as a cop, he had been corrupt.

article from the website laborers.org

Update: Corbitt died of lung cancer in 2004 at age 60

Alan Master's Death

2008-09-07T15:33:00.000-07:00

Alan Masters, convicted of plotting his wife's murder in a sordid case that spawned two books and a TV miniseries, was buried Wednesday in Chicago after dying in a prison hospital.Mr. Masters, 65, died Monday in the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn., six months after being transferred from the Pekin Federal Correctional Institute.He drew a 40-year sentence in 1989 after a federal judge ruled he had conspired to kill his wife, Dianne. Also convicted were former Willow Springs Police Chief Michael Corbitt and former Cook County Sheriff's Police Cmdr. James Keating. Dianne Masters' body was found in 1982 in the trunk of her yellow Cadillac after it was hoisted out of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal near Willow Springs. Missing for nine months, she had been shot twice and her skull was crushed.Prosecutors said Mr. Masters confessed he had beaten her to death with a pistol in the driveway of their home in Summit. But his statement was not allowed to be used at trial, and no one ever was charged with the murder.The government called Mr. Masters a "master fixer" who paid off judges and police officers such as Corbitt and Keating to protect gambling and prostitution in the southwest suburbs.A wealthy Palos Park attorney, Mr. Masters began courting Dianne while advising her on a divorce from her first husband.The Masters' marriage was marked by beatings and riven by her affairs, the last one with an English teacher. She talked explicitly about the affair on a telephone she suspected was being tapped by her husband.In the months before Mrs. Masters' disappearance, Mr. Masters openly made threats against her to friends and close clients.The sensational story was told in "Deadly Matrimony," a TV movie in which the overweight, toupee-wearing Mr. Masters was played by Treat Williams. It also was the basis for two books: Blind Justice, written by Ray and Edie Gibson with Mrs. Masters' brother, Randall Turner, and Shattered Hopes: A True Crime Story of Marriage, Murder, Corruption and Cover-up in the Suburbs, by Barbara Schaaf.Mr. Masters is survived by his wife, Janet, whom he married after Dianne Masters' death; two sons, Steven and Douglas; a daughter he had with Dianne Masters, Anndra; a brother, Leonard, and four grandchildren.